Editorial: Recall just a blip in former senator's impressive career

Reports of the death of former State Sen. Philip O. Mastin Jr. acknowledged his place in Michigan history as the first legislator to be recalled from office.

There was far more than that to the man.

The recall occurred in 1983. Mastin and another Democrat, David Serotkin from Macomb County, were targeted for their votes for a temporary increase in the state income tax. No other legislators in either house were thus targeted.

But Mastinís role as a progressive-minded public servant, as someone involved in improving his community and the lives of those around him, had begun two decades before that. That continued for nearly three decades after.

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Mastin in the early 1960s was elected to the Hazel Park City Council, one of a progressive group in a somewhat backward community.

The cityís small downtown and some of its neighborhoods were decaying. It was under orders to clean up pollution from sewage spilling into a couple of drains. Previous councils had maintained low property tax rates and resisted the cleanup.

Mastin and other newly elected council members did what needed to be done, and with vision. They pooled federal urban renewal money, state payments for a school and a small city hall in the path of the oncoming Interstate 75 freeway and applied them to redevelopment of the cityís little downtown, including a new city hall and library, supermarket, hotel and several stores.

Mastin went on to serve the southeastern Oakland area as a county commissioner and three terms in the state House.

He next served as city manager, then downtown development authority director in Pontiac before running for the state Senate from the Pontiac area in 1982.

After the recall, as Michigan emerged from recession, Mastin turned to job creation and training in a nonprofit organization created jointly by General Motors and the United Automobile Workers.

He also served on the Mental Health Association in Michigan from 1977, as president in 1987, and on the board of the National Mental Health Association.

That 1983 recall, in hindsight, may be seen as a good thing by those who see all tax hikes as bad, although it helped bail the state out of a huge deficit.

Itís a reminder that no elected official is out of reach of votersí wrath, whether or not the wrath is justified.

But in the life of someone as productive as Phil Mastin, being ousted from office was just a blip.